Sleepers
by SMFirefly
Summary: AU Glee, Sci-Fi: 4-Girl-Centric story Plus One. See Profile for synopsis. Eventual M rating. Chpt. 3 Part 1 - "She cannot run anywhere; there is no longer anywhere to go. It suddenly hits her that she is the only one making any noise at all, but if eyes could scream, the students of McKinley High would be breaking glass right now." Faberry & Brittana
1. Origins, Sweat

**Genre: Glee, AU, Science-Fiction, Ancient Aliens**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything about, of, or from Glee, Ancient Aliens, or any other conspiracy theorist.**

**Sleepers Synopsis:**

** AU Glee, Sci-Fi, Ancient Aliens conceptualization, Humor, Romance –**

** Rachel stumbles across a dimensional pocket/object that attaches itself to her. The effect of interacting with the device accesses dormant DNA causing her to alter of a physiological and mental level.**

** There is purpose behind the dimensional object and its placement, to ensure the continuity of a foreign breeding program. The breeding program began between 200,000 to 157,000 years ago for the purpose of preparing for the Enemy. A short introduction of this comes before the story begins. _Do not assume that you know the Alien life forms that instigate genetic change in humans. They are far more removed from humans than you suspect!_**

_**Sleepers**_

**Origin**

**Exit**

A ship leaves the atmosphere on a dark night. Two moons glow weakly in the distance as the vessel slips past what can be seen with the naked eye. No sounds of the ship's engines are heard, at this point, from the surface of the planet. Four pairs of eyes continue to watch the sky that swallowed the craft, waiting for the final exit to be initiated. The stress of all hope resting on the success of this mission is acute. Finally, a brief and faint flash leaves the smallest of after images within the watchers eyes. As a group, they exhale and slowly turn away to prepare for what is coming.

**Aboard the Ship**

Little warm bodies squirm in their pods as the ship morphs through time, dimension, and space. Limbs with fingers and toes graze the edges of their confinements. Four sets of adult hands fly across panels in separate compartments within the spaceship to check interior and exterior data. The warp of movement the ship is now in requires very little focus from the adult minds within. An audible sigh escapes each and every adult as they come to terms with the isolation they are about to experience. They will not see anyone they knew and cared for, for a very long time-possibly ever again.

If they had the ability, to see their counterparts on the planet they left, they would find the corresponding sadness and hope plainly written across faces. It could not be helped. Someone had to make this uncertain trip into a world that did not belong to them. They all hoped that the options afforded both worlds would benefit each equally. There was no reason to let both species die if they could combine forces for a mutual future. Even if the plan was to alter the human race's abilities; preparing for war before it is ever initiated on the human's home soil. Humans had almost everything they needed in potential for the event, but they would be completely overwhelmed if further change was not instigated before contact with the Enemy is made. They would not be ready when their time came to face extinction at the hands of the Enemy. There was no other way to contain or counter the decimation against the Enemy assault coming for both planets. Time is the only thing standing between them and their own end.

The spacecraft was traveling in a fashion that was new to its passengers. Time is defied. The mystery of time was unraveled by one to the people left behind, so that the seeding could take place in multiple generations within human societies. There was a sacrifice being made by their entire species. The end of them, as they currently were, was to become something else within the life of the semi-compatible human beings.

The children aboard the ship had already been altered to allow them the chance to assimilate. They were the second generation removed and adapted for humanity from their original species. The adults present were only of the first generation, and still bore some physiological likenesses that would be noticeable as "other" to humans. They would have to gain insight into the inner workings of humans before further genetic changes could be made to safeguard their secrets against discovery.

Not much was known about the human species on a social level. The bio-physiological findings within the samples taken were many years ago, along with samples of animal and plant life collected during the only contact with humanity in its early entrance as intelligent life forms. Humanity seemed to be capable of fast evolution, which was one of the reasons to align themselves to them. A few generations had passed since the ramifications of their extinction manifested through one of their most gifted. The End was coming. It was coming for many planets and Peoples.

The knowledge spread throughout inhabited space to a few key individuals within all Peoples for safeguarding and preparation. All Peoples would continue as they were, with the exception of those who would be preparing for war that could begin within the next twenty to a few thousand generations. All Peoples had their own measure of counting the time remaining. Many were very long-lived and chose to seek hiding some of their own away for safe keeping, but this did not correspond with all People's needs. As for the home of the passengers aboard the ship, it was imperative that genetic manipulation remain dormant until triggered. A series of triggers or the serious threat to their offspring's life would allow partial to complete resurgence of unique hidden resources. Even the genetic characteristics found in other fauna and flora of the world they were approaching were also utilized to allow bridging and amplification of powerful new conjoined DNA resting within the small life forms inside the pods on the ship.

A rift in space opened. The ship dropped into the orbit of a planet that would later come to be called Earth.

**Trace Truths**

Compared to the humans they would live and grow beside, the children would be considered exceptional; they were the objectified, exalted, turned into gods by their counterparts. Myths and legends originated from foreign DNA, used in the defense of the Second Generation. By the Fourth Generation, offspring became true Sleepers, due to full DNA dormancy completion. From that generation on, the offspring became the true legacy of two distinct Peoples united on a cellular level.

There were clues left for the children of the future. Ways to learn, weapons to find, create, and use in their defense of civilization when the time came and most importantly, the knowledge for succeeding through the war and beyond as a productive People. After the nature of human kind was observed, the Second Generation hid the dangerous, but necessary things in small dimensional pockets keyed only to those who could use them. They would not be recognized for what they were by anyone who was not a part of the altered race prepared for survival.

Throughout human history, small miracles have taken place by individuals with partial access to their abilities; unaccountable strengths, feats, unexplainable knowledge, or skills scattered through stone tablets, old documents, and throughout modern stories. No human was ever able to predict the complete pattern of events that lead to the release of the reticent Sleeper Potential, partial though it inevitably would be. Evidence of something "other" about themselves as a People generally caused anxiety, fear, or envy within them. Wars were fought over Sleeper Potential, regardless of whether they comprehended the true awareness driving them to aggression. As individuals and groups of people perpetuated the "_no one can have what I _cannot_ have or have more control than I_" mentality, humankind began this in ancient days and still clings to them now.

**_Chapter – 1 Sweat_**

Quinn shifted uncomfortably on the wooden pew as she watched beads of sweat slide down the new pastor's face. He was nervous and probably wondering if he would meet the grizzly white-haired, pastor's approval, who was sitting front and center to the younger man behind the pulpit. Quinn's eyes scanned the profile of the retiring pastor and saw his stern expression. The new pastor had yet to bring up hell or suffering and apparently the sermon was lacking because of it. Quinn was relieved, but bored all the same. She had come to an unspoken and unshared understanding that religion was simply a form of living art. An art that is abstract, but infiltrates things you can see, touch, or do. So far, the man had waxed on, at great lengths, to be kind and good to your neighbors and enemies. He proposed that good Christians seek protection from god rather than men in a manner that made little sense to Quinn.

Something about the Word of God, Faith, Holy Spirit, shields, swords, and armor was mentioned, but that information really did not sink passed the surface within Quinn's mind. It did however alter Quinn's other thoughts. "It really doesn't make sense. Who uses that medieval stuff anymore? Why talk or think like that when as soon as you leave, you get into a machine that took the place of horses a long time ago? Apply this to your own lives? I'm a cheerleader. I'm on the top of the food chain in my world. Apparently, this is advice for people who don't have anything, but want something more than what they have."

Quinn's eyes skim the rest on the congregation covertly. No one here would be a threat to her status, except her two friends sitting with their families. Even that was rather unrealistic, since they did not normally attend the same church. Santana and Brittany were here today only because Quinn had asked them to come. Power placed strategically. Evaluation of potential influence over the new pastor was taking place. The three girls were not in charge of it, but they would be questioned by their elders later, to get their perspectives. They were to go to her house for a sleep over after services, since both of her friends Parental Units would be on their way to the airport soon, though headed for separate destinations. The all three girls came from money, and that money was the influence that dictated how Lima, OH was run. For many generations the families encouraged their members to maintain mutually beneficial ties; these families "had each other's backs". The youngest generation became the "Unholy Trinity", to those who could not compete with their combined determination to stay on top of the social hierarchy at school. Quinn contemplated the continuity of life imitating art through religion, over and over, to maintain status quo. A faint smirk began to grow upon her lips. The sermon was finally ending. Apparently, there would be no hellfire today.

Quinn rose from her seat and headed outside after the services ended. Taking a deep breath, she sighed out in relief at having not fallen asleep during a service. She had not done that since she was eight years old, but the anxiety of a repeat punishment for falling asleep during services still kept her awake and she mentally added another tally mark to her total successes, 384 in total. She had missed many services while she was pregnant and after the miscarriage. That made a total of 14 tally marks since she started attending church with her mother on Sunday mornings again. This time was different though.

Quinn stepped down off the stairs and into the grass underneath the shade of the oldest tree in Lima, Ohio. The temperature dropped by at least 15 degrees and Quinn's fair skin thanked her for it. Then, two beautiful young women exited within a minute of her and approached to stand a few feet away under the tree. "What did you think of it?" Quinn asked.

Santana answered with, "Glad that's over. Most boring sh…stuff I've had to sit through since Manhands…urr, Rachel's ranting before last year's Sectionals." Santana flung dark smooth hair over her shoulder with an irritated hand as she fought to contain curse words and crude speech from leaving her mouth in front of a church and the people emptying from it.

Brittany tilted her head and focused her eyes on a spot somewhere to the left of Quinn's head and stated, "Rachel will be back this year before school starts." Santana and Quinn turned to look at her more closely. They all remembered Rachel's excited comments about the unexpected trip she was making right before High School ended.

Quinn quirked her eyebrow, "Brittany, how do you know that?" She did not really want to bring up Rachel, but she did want to know why Brittany knew what was going on, and why she cared that they did.

"Because she promised me she would," stated Brittany. The girl seemed to be thinking rather deeply about this for some reason.

"When did she do that?" Santana's ire rose as she added a snort of irritation that Brittany was obviously still contacting the short loud Streisand wannabe. She sensed that she was going to need to go over the "rules" again to keep Brittany from adopting the midget outright.

"Yesterday" was the answer given as Brittany's expression morphed as brand of absolute exited certainty came into her eyes. "I think she found the talking dinosaur's hideout." This look was the same one she had when discussing Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or time traveling. Actually, Quinn thought, Brittany had a very limited quantity of expressions. Certain, happy, excited, confused, or sad, sometimes managing a mutation of two expressions at the same time.

That look and those words caused Quinn and Santana to physically still, and mentally stall for a moment, as they translated Brittany Speak into "Rachel and her father found something at the archeological dig in Africa". The girls exhaled together in comprehension, but before the girls could explain the factual reality to Brittany, she added, "I told her to take a veterinarian and something for them to eat because they've been there, like, a really long time."

It was apparent to Quinn that the current visual in Brittany's head would require a great deal of explanation, probably requiring stuff she couldn't care less about and would cause Brittany's confusion to multiply like evil gremlins in water before she could be set straight. Quinn sent Santana a look, "It's your return to explain." Santana rolled her eyes, but gave a subtle nod. As Santana drew Brittany's attention to explain, Quinn glanced around. Where was her mother? Finally, she saw her, Judy Fabray, exiting the church along with the new pastor, the new, young, and single pastor. Eew! Her mom had only been divorced for two months, but apparently the mourning period was over.

Quinn was about to leave her friends under the old oak tree as a means of escaping the doomed conversation between them, when she experienced a feeling of vertigo. Quinn stumbled a few steps before her right foot slipped from its shoe and landed in the manicured grass. Suddenly, a hot sensation hit the sole of her foot and traveled up the inside of her leg, through her bones, like molten runny pancake syrup going the wrong direction. Within seconds, it felt as though every pore on her skin of her whole body was oozing sweat. She wanted to scream, but instead, a swallowed gasp weakly left her mouth. From her periphery, she could see that Santana and Brittany were stumbling drunkenly. Quinn's next inhaled breathe left again in a whimper, joining her friends in surprised and curious exclamations of pain, and then the world went dark.

**Africa**

The heat radiating off the ground was literally painful to be a part of. It felt like she was swimming in it. At the moment, Rachel lacked the energy to find words greater than four letters to mentally describe her misery. The memory of Leroy, her father, winning her over to come with him this trip seemed, in retrospect, a form of blasphemy to any gods listening, and sacrilegious to the disruption of previously safe and important ballet, acting, modern dance, and voice lessons she had planned for the summer. He shared with her in a hushed and urgent tone that something was discovered. Something that Leroy wanted to pursue more than anything else in his life. A new dig had found stone markers buried in African soil that predated all known historical findings and indicating an origin story was somewhere in the vicinity. The most ancient language and culture might be revealed soon; his skills and knowledge of dead languages were needed.

Rachel's Daddy, Hiram, would be unavailable for the next six months. Meetings were scheduled for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and as a "mandatory" consultant; he would have to be present. The last natural disaster to occur took place only four months ago; a hurricane hitting the east coast leaving so many over a million people homeless and without needed supplies to care for themselves. FEMA requested the legal right, through legislative action, to pull all active and inactive military disaster consultants in as needed. Hiram was still in the National Guard; though he still considered himself a "weekend warrior", having officially retired only last year; would not be physically available should anything happen with their daughter. With those orders arriving for Hiram, Rachel ran out of room to argue her case of remaining in Lima, Ohio for the summer.

She was still perspiring profusely. Both of her fathers had explained the importance of that, in the type of climate she would find herself, while accompanying Leroy to the arid and highland areas of Sudan in North Eastern Africa. All the same, she thought, this is disgusting and completely lacking in personal dignity. She felt moisture bead on her forehead and slide down to the tip of her nose for the hundredth time before swiping it away with the turban like cloth hanging awkwardly by her ear. She had failed in keeping the long strip of fabric on top of her head, so it dangled in an irritating, yet conveniently accessible way for face dabbing. Her father had promised that the temperatures would change in the next few hours as they reached their destination.

Currently, they were entering the highlands, but the dust was still thick in the air and coated everything on her person. She was constantly itchy and being bounced about in the back seat of the ancient jeep. She felt rather crusty. She imagined Kurt's facial expression to what must surely be a hideous sight. She sighed. Kurt had not responded to any of her emails. To take her mind off the reality she was suffering through, she reached into the pack underneath her feet for her journal. There was no way she would be able to write legibly, but she decided to read her last entries. Brittany was mentioned in this one. Actually, she was the only one mentioned in the journal for the last two weeks. It was the sum total of time that she had been gone from Lima, Ohio. Rachel last communicated with Brittany yesterday and the email message had been confusing for both parties. Rachel had attempted to explain why she was in Africa to Brittany, unfortunately the more clarifying Rachel did, the more confused Brittany became. In the end, Rachel decided it would be easier to "find the talking dinosaur's hideout" and show her friend pictures of the things she intended to take of the dig site as a visual means of explanation.

While she really did not want to physically be here, she did appreciate the importance of her father's work. The sheer magnitude of discovering the oldest organized group of people could only mean fame for her father. The idea that she might be a part of said discovery made Rachel squirm in excitement for at least eight seconds before she noticed the motion of the jeep slowing down. Oh my god! Oh my god! Please let this be it!

Her father and the driver talked excitedly, in an African dialect, as the jeep turned onto a dirt path that seemed too small for anything but a pair of goats to walk side by side on. Rachel felt far more alone than usual, since she had no idea what they were talking about. Within a few minutes, they were going up a steep incline that was beginning to make Rachel anxious. She leaned forward and to the left as far as her body could in the confines of the back seat. Suddenly, the jeep hopped, and landed onto a platform of natural rock, then shuddered to a stop. Rachel's heart was hammering so hard by this point that the relief of relative vertical safely made her light-headed. Belatedly, she attempted to complain but was cut off by her door being opened. Rachel gathered her nerve and compressed whiny noises into the back of her throat, then stepped out of the jeep. She would not embarrass her father in front of the six people standing before the new arrivals.

As Rachel took in the surrounding area, she looked passed the men facing her and spotted an opening in the side of the mountain that seemed like a perfect horizontally presenting oval. It appeared about six feet across until she found herself within ten feet of the opening. She had not realized that she stepped around the men in front of her to get a better look. Wow! The opening was tilted at forty-five degrees, angling upward into the mountain. The opening was larger than she realized and not the oval shape she first thought, but a circle. The shape was so unnaturally even it could have been made with a laser. Then she caught sight of a ladder resting on the ground in front of the entrance.

Rachel heard her name being called the second time. She spun on her heels to address her father. "I'm so sorry! What did you say, Dad?"

Leroy was excited and sidetracked only slightly with amusement by his daughter's obvious focus on the entrance before them. "The men have assured me that there is no danger in entering at this point. They have roped off all areas requiring careful exploring. You can follow along behind me, sweetheart. They found a center cavity just a few minutes ago with several tunnels that have not been explored yet. Since it is starting to get dark, we will just take a quick run through, then come back and set up our tents. Just stick with me Rachel." His smile gleamed brightly as he followed the men to the ladder being raised to the entrance. Rachel thought, Yeah…sleeping on the ground again, but tried to set that aside and smiled as energetically as she could toward her Dad. Everyone pivoted and moved to the entrance.

Rachel waited for everyone to pass and began the climb up the ladder after Leroy. Suddenly, Rachel felt a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. As she climbed into the entrance proper, the feeling spread throughout her body in a curious coiling fashion. She paused once both feet were firmly planted in the packed dirt just inside the opening. Something is…wrong, she thought. Her arms hung at her sides limply. Her breathing rhythm was slowing into deep inhales and exhales, without her conscious effort. The world seemed to be slowing down around her. The men in front of her were moving as though they were walking underwater on a seabed. She examined her own movements and realized that-though moving slower than usual-she was far faster than them.

Rachel decided it was good time to panic. She attempted to run but instead, stepped almost languidly in front of her father to gain his attention. He did not seem to notice her. She began waving and rambling in panic. "Dad! Hello! Dad, can you hear me? Do you even see me?" Slowly, so slowly, he seemed to notice her as she repeated herself over and over. The verbal response he finally gave her, once his eyes settled on a space to She had been standing in three minutes ago and to her left, was simply too long in constants and vowels to make sense of. His lips were moving with the speed of a glazier, she could not recognize the sounds as comprehensible speech. Then, all of the men froze in place.

Rachel continued rambling. Rachel paced. She shouted, pleaded, begged.

It had been almost an hour and she was ready to collapse. Every feasible scenario she could think of was discounted or beyond her reach to implement. She gave up crying. Her face was streaked with dirty tears that formed crusted ridges through repeated smudging swipes at her face. She finally stopped talking when she plopped to the ground.

That was when she heard it. Actually, she felt it first; humming. Very deep within the stone floor was a sound so low in reverberation she did not immediately recognize it as a sound at all. After she took notice of it, the resonance began to make her teeth ache and a ticklish feeling hit the thin bone separating her mouth from her sinus cavity causing her nose to itch. Ahh! She jumped back to her feet, the itching and pain eased somewhat. She found herself stretching toward the faintest of sounds coming from the only tunnel that led deeper into the cave. Rachel took a few hesitant steps toward the tunnel. The sound was definitely coming from there. She continued forward until she was just inside the dark opening. The heavy coiled feeling inside of lifted a little, but the sound became more defined. She backed out and away to return to the frozen men and her father. The coiling pressure returned. Rachel sighed in confusion, sensing that she was truly alone in a space filled with men who could not even see her. She was going to need a flashlight.

Rachel carefully crept through the first series of caverns, loaded down with a pack that her father had prepared for her, and two flashlights clipped to her belt. She was wearing a headband she took from one of the men with a flashlight on it, but had been too terrified of being left in complete darkness to consider leaving the other light sources behind. She had a canteen attached to a long strap draped diagonally across her torso. She took a few swallows of the tepid water before capping the canteen again. She had light. She had water. She continued to pursue the growing sound, drawing her down and deeper into the mountain. Gradually, Rachel became aware of the faintest of light shimmering ahead of her. Her throat became tight in anxious excitement when she was able to turn off the head lamp. She found the heart of the humming on a raised platform within the sunken floor of the cavern.

Rachel had at first thought that the light was from a hole leading to the outside and the light was coming from above. As she looked carefully, at the spot of brilliance on the rocky ceiling, she spotted a set of symbols engraved within the stone, shimmering with the metallic hue of gold, silver, and something that seemed like a blue-white metal. It was bright enough that it cast secondary illumination upon the floor in blurred, but unique, patterns. Slowly, her gaze drifted over them. Time was passing as she continued to stare at the symbols and patterns. An after-image appeared on the backs of her eyelids for over a minute in stark relief before she grasped that they were closed. She opened her eyes.

Rachel felt weirdly lighter, but no longer terrified. She contemplated the object shooting light into the symbols in the ceiling above it. The sound, that had harassed her into pursuing it, now seemed to give her a sense of anticipation over anxiety. She carefully moved toward the object while studying the way it physically shifted its shape as she approached. Every shape she ever learned to recognize in geometry was morphing translucently in front of her. The unstable object was giving off a blue-light that corresponded with the symbols on the ceiling. Rachel slowly approached it. She now stood close enough to touch it.

Rachel's hand reached out to touch the shifting thing, which finally resolved itself into a long slender chain that contained the symbols from the ceiling, walls, and floor of the cavern. The light from the object was dying down. Rachel frantically reached for the knob on the side of the head light and twisted it on before darkness swallowed the cavern. The necklace remained in her hand.

Then, Rachel's world imploded.

A fiery heat coursed through the necklace in her hand and passed through her whole body. It felt like she was burning from the inside out. Sweat beaded and ran from her pores in rivulets, far faster than her body had every experienced before. Writhing pain floated under her skin. The ground shook, split open, and water came up from the stone floor to meet her. Rachel dropped to the floor in a dead faint. As the water rose about her, the necklace slid its way up her body and around her throat, slipping almost completely out of sight underneath her shirt.

It took over forty minutes for the men to find her.

**Burn Out & Time Lost – Church Yard**

The sound of all three girls, hitting the ground under the oldest tree in Lima, did not draw attention. Three voices, filling the air with pain, were not heard. The grass, touching every inch of their skin and turning brown, went unseen. The ground erupting, and water pouring out, and then pooling around three bodies to be absorbed into them, was unobserved.

Time reasserted its normal routine after the equivalent of 10 minutes for the girls on the ground. Exhales and intakes of breath resumed in the small pocket of stasis, and then there was panic. People watched the water spread out and away from the girls. The young women's skin was glowing faintly with a blue-white light.

It would take a week before anyone noticed that the oldest tree in Lima, OH was half dead, lending another reason for superstitious minds to decide the three young women were cursed.


	2. Defined

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything about, of, or from Glee, Ancient Aliens, archeological findings, or any other conspiracy theorist. I am not a qualified source for presenting sound scientific theories, despite the likelihood of vague referencing inevitably wriggling into this story somewhere.**

**_Chapter 2 – Defined_**

**Lima, Ohio – Hospital ~ Quinn**

Quinn was knew it was a dream; her baby was in her arms.

_ They were in the hospital bed and Quinn felt her child's tiny hand brush against her chest. The infant's face was blurred, indistinct. It always was when she had this dream. Every time she fell through this rabbit hole, Quinn would begin a disconnecting. The pain of understanding that she had lost something so precious never allowed her to see the child's face. Tears rolled down her cheeks as the weight in her arms disappeared._

Quinn's dream shifted_. The sitting room of her house, her father's face, filled with disgust and the sound of the microwave timer, filled her heart and head with unquenchable pain and disillusionment._

Her dream shifted again._ Quinn was falling from the top of the pyramid, and then hitting the ground hard with pain shooting through her lower belly and pelvis._

Shift._ The hospital room, the humiliation of her father refusing to allow her to come home. Always not good enough to stand by. So lonely. So empty._

Quinn came to, suddenly, her dream receding slowly as her eyes open. A tiled ceiling is above her head and the distinct scent of disinfectant clogs her nose.

_ What the hell? Please let this be part of my nightmare!_ Her eyes shift quickly about before landing on her mother, asleep, her head resting awkwardly on a pillow against the back of a reclined hospital chair. _This is wrong. This is not how it happened._ Her pulse slows as her panic eases as she lets go of the dream. She takes mental inventory as she glances down her blanket clad body. Her right arm is cold. She looks down to see an IV tube coming out of it.

_Intrusive!_

She reaches for the tube to yank it out, before calming again and letting go. She continues looking over her body for clues as to why she is here. She gulps drily, concentrating on each body part. _Toes? Check. Feet? Check. Legs? Check. Empty feeling? Check._ Quinn's breath eases, as she determines all of her body parts are still there and working. _Everything is where it's supposed to be_. She sighs in relief. _Why am I in the hospital? _A flash of the Incident comes over her then. The pain, heat, and dizzy feelings she experienced under the old tree were gone, but she senses that something is different. _It feels like my body is lighter or something._ Finally, thirst hits her throat full force. _Oh god, I need water!_ Her eyes rose to the rolling hospital table shoved partially behind her mother's chair where she can see a pitcher of water resting. "Mom!" she croaks.

Judy's eyes open at the sound of her daughter's voice. "Honey! Quinnie?" She reaches out to the dehydrated girl lying on the bed beside her. Judy's voice cracks from recent crying.

"Water?!" Quinn watches her mother prepare a hospital cup and hand it to her. Quinn's voice is hoarse when she whispers, "and don't call me that." Judy hands her the water then glances away from her daughter.

Quinn drinks deeply. _Cold!_ It feels like she hasn't had anything to drink in days. The temperature of her body begins equalizing to the water. She feels cold chills across her chest. Shivering, she hands back the empty cup and tries to burrow into the thin hospital blankets. Quinn shifts onto her side to face her mother fully. "Mom…what am I doing here, what happened?"

Judy's face clears of its agitation and is replaced with concern at the request, "The doctor said that you were severely dehydrated. Brittany and Santana were also admitted for the same reason." Judy pauses for a moment, "The doctors feel that all three of you need to conserve your energy for the next few weeks. That means that none of you will be allowed into Cheerios practice for a while." Judy glances furtively at the foot of the bed where Quinn's chart is placed. There was something Judy was hesitating to say, but she let it go. Her need to prove she did not belong in a hospital bed was more pressing.

Quinn sits straight up. Dizziness hits her, but she ignores it.

Quinn's face sets into the familiar dominant Fabray trait of prideful stubborn lines. Whatever has happened to her, she is not going to allow it to take away her chance at being on the Cheerios. There is no way in hell she is going to let the position of head Cheerio be taken by someone else without a fight. _She had worked too hard and sacrificed so much!_ With the anxiety of failure looming, Quinn shakes her head, then swings her legs over until her feet touch the floor. She places weight and shifts into an upright position, then almost face-plants right there on floor. The stand holding her IV bag wobbles before righting itself after being yanked. Judy intervenes and Quinn finds her vision clearing to view the room from almost the same position she woke up in.

"Shit!" Her voice cracks. Her eyes ache like she needs to cry, but no moisture collects. _Do I have enough water left for that_? _Can dream tears suck you dry?_

"Language, Quinn!" Quinn ignores the comment. She does not want to talk to her mother right now about proper speaking etiquette. _She's in a damn hospital bed right now!_ Then she remembers she was not the only one that collapsed.

"Mom, are San and Britt okay? Can I see them?"

Judy manages to get Quinn back into to bed with the reassurance that she will check to see if they have woken up yet. Quinn needs to talk with them. She needs to know what happened. Judy seems to be working up her nerve to ask Quinn something.

"Quinn, you know that you can tell me anything that's going on with you, don't you?" Quinn's frustrated expression slides into the Fabray poker face at the question. Judy tries again, "If something is happening to you and the girls, you'd tell me right?"

"Mom, nothing is going on." Quinn can see that her mother does not really believe her. "I promise. Santana, Brittany and I have not done anything to cause this." Quinn keeps her gaze solid as she waits for Judy to accept her answer as the truth. She knew for certain that she had not done anything, anyway. _It would be strange no matter how you look at it. How could something either of them doing cause her to collapse?_ The fact that all three of them needed hospitalization at the same time though was telling. Quinn really needed answers!

Judy sighed. Her expression said that she still had reservations, but let it drop for now. Quinn could tell that she would be pestered at a later date, possibly when a doctor was around to apply some pressure.

Quinn spent the next half hour rehydrating before she felt up to calling Santana.

"San, are you okay?"

Santana groans a bit before replying, "Woke just a few minutes ago. I feel like shit and I'm thirsty as hell… you?" Quinn replied that it was the same for her, and then she asks if Brittany is awake yet.

"I just got off the phone with her parents, Q. They said that she wasn't awake yet, but is stirring. As soon as I can get my ass out of this bed, I'm gonna go see her. She's just four rooms down from me."

"How far is my room from yours? What is your room number, S?" Quinn shifted the phone away from her mouth and asked her mom what her room number is. Santana's answer lets her know that she had a long hallway to go down before she can reach the other members of the Unholy Trinity. "Okay S, I'm going to drink the damn water in here and see if I can wheel this IV bag down to your room."

"Meet me in Britt's room, Q. It will save you a few steps." Santana replies.

"Okay, I'm getting off here." She hesitates. Quinn finds herself responding to the tension in Santana's voice. "Don't leave your room without taking care of yourself first. You won't do her any good if you pass out before getting there. Drink as much water as you can before to go." Then Quinn hangs up the phone and asks her mom for more water. She is going to follow her own advice.

Quinn works her way through the pitcher of water by the bed. She's focusing on the series of events leading to the pain and collapse. _What was significant?_ Nothing stood out in particular to explain why it happened, then sermon given, by that nervous new pastor, pops into her head.

_ She's watching his sweaty face, pontificating on Ephesians Chapter 6. He tries to articulate and place emphasis on antiquated words from a dead language, to sway his audience into accepting those words as law. But why bother? Law for what and who? Is there some reason that humans are going to need armor and weapons against something that is not flesh and blood? If God can't fight the evil, or enemy, then why would he expect humans to do a better job of it when we won't have anything to aim at? _Quinn thought this seemed illogical, asking humans to protect ourselves against someone like us made sense, but not against something intangible.

Despite the unlikelihood of success, Quinn began envisioning herself in a suite of armor; wielding a sword and shield, while swinging at an invisible foe. _Yeah, that's not going to happen. Okay, nothing there. What happened next?_

_ I left the church…we were under the tree._ Rachel. _We were talking about her when this happened, weren't we?_ Quinn's throat began to tighten_. Is this important? Logically it can't be. What happened was tangible. The pain and dizziness-Rachel wasn't even there. Then why do I have this twisted feeling in my gut that Rachel is a part of this? Is it her fault? Ah! That's just nuts. No! I have to let that go. It doesn't make any sense. Maybe Santana or Brittany will have answers._

"Mom, would you get the nurse for me?" Quinn was making herself crazy with wondering.

Quinn manages to talk the nurse into supplying a wheelchair and she works up to shifting herself into it before her mother leaves. Quinn gets back to her room to find a note from her mom saying that she had to go home and get some rest before work, since she could not miss any more without it causing a problem.

**Santana's Hospital Room ~ Santana**

Santana's first thought on waking was of Brittany. Actually, that's not true. It was the first important thought she had. As Santana's eyes were opening, she was calling out for coffee. That was the first thought and it was a desperate one. _Damn!_ She felt the type of exhaustion from a morning after a horrible night, woken up too early for the purpose of a horrible morning agenda. Kind of like a back-to-back Cheerios practices right before a competition. Then add thirsty to make it all better.

Santana soon realized her mother, Maribel, was not going to give into the request for caffeine. "Coffee? You are not getting coffee Santana. You collapsed outside of a church! I see you in the morning and your cheeks are nice and plump, now you look like you had liposuction. Are you on drugs?" Santana's hands reach for her face. "What are you not telling me?"

"Mamá, I did nothing! Maybe my face was tired of carrying the extra weight." Maribel's expression became hard and sharp, Santana could see this was not going well, nor would it get her coffee. "Mamá please?" Santana saw the standard plastic water pitcher and cup sitting on the rolling table. She grimaced, this would be gross. "I will promise to drink a whole pitcher of water if you get me coffee from the nurse's breakroom." Santana was definitely pushing it with that.

"All of the water I put in the pitcher, Santana, and you will have to accept the coffee I get you. Just because your father works here does not mean you should have special treatment."

"Of course not, Mamá." Santana really hoped she would still try for the nurse's breakroom anyway.

Maribel hesitated. "You still have to explain all of this to your Papá."

It was at this point of uncomfortable truce and compliance from her mother that Santana's mind acknowledged the fact that something was wrong with her, but she had no idea why her face decided to get skinny now. She was in a hospital after all. Normally she was the person wearing the candy striper's outfit, so this was an unpleasant reality. Wait! She wasn't the only one!

Santana began to panic.

Only a phone call to Brittany would keep her in her hospital bed, so her mother made that happen as quickly as she could upon seeing her daughter's very real distress. Once Maribel was certain they had Brittany's room connected, she left.

Santana did not get to speak to Brittany. She was still out. She found the role of comforter reversed when speaking to Mrs. Pierce. Santana kept reassuring her that Brittany would be okay and promised to have her father check on Brittany himself when he was able to see her. After that conversation, Santana allowed herself to relax enough to really think of Quinn, who must be here in the hospital somewhere.

Before she could locate her, Quinn had called and treated her like a child with instructions on how to care for herself. She would have been pissed off, but she let it go. Quinn showing that much touchy-feely emotion trumped Santana's pissy feeling. Santana felt off with the weird mix of warmth, because Quinn cared, and a creepy unsettled feeling, because Santana disliked warm feelings for anyone but Brittany. Their friendship was complicated.

Santana was almost finished with the water she promised to drink, when a nurse came in to check her vitals. "Hi. I'm your nurse for the night. I'm here to take your vitals and I'll need to draw some blood. I'll start with that." Without further warning, the nurse grabbed Santana's wrist and began turning her arm into position to draw blood.

Santana was not pleased. "Nurse, I-Don't-Have-My-Badge-Because-I'm-A-Dumbass, since you're not wearing the required badge mandated by hospital policy, and your name is too long; I'll simply use your surname, Dumbass. I can only assume you got your credentials as a prize from a cereal box, so lets me clue you in." With a short inhale, Santana's finding her stride. "My name is Santana Lopez, a.k.a. daughter of the Resident Dr. Miguel Lopez, and you will bring some respect when you step into my premium insurance paid hospital room, before you even think about laying a single short-fingered hand on me. So, step out and try that again." Santana's posture morphed as she spoke into ultra bitch mode that she is so well known for in high school.

As she was waiting for the red-faced pissed off nurse to comply with her demands, it happened. Santana experienced the woman's emotions. She could see them, and not like simple body language. She could see flowing layers of reds and red-oranges wafting and spinning around nurse, Dumbass. Then the smell of nurse's anger hit.

Santana's mouth gaped. It's possible that she was going to pass out. The nurse's mouth is moving. _Can't hear a damn thing, you badge-less dumbass._ The nurse isn't acting like she sees the floating color crap all around her. _Breathe! Just fucking breathe!_ Santana did her best to resist the urge of jumping over the hospital bed and hiding in the bathroom. Her hands began trembling as she gripped the side-rails.

Suddenly, it stopped. No colors. No weird burnt rubber smells. _Shit!_ She had imagined it. The nurse was blathering about something, but Santana had quit listening some time ago. In an ironic turn of events, Santana found herself acting in a docile manner giving up her blood to the still irritated nurse Dumbass.

**Brittany's Hospital Room ~ Quinn**

The three of them look exhausted, Santana and Quinn more than Brittany. They're by themselves at the moment in Brittany's room. Quinn asks, "How did you feel when you woke up?"

Santana nervously shifts closer to Brittany on her bed. Santana's expression is guarded and Quinn gets the impression that she's about to deflect. "I was tired and thirsty. No worse than when I had flu, or Mono. " Quinn arches her eyebrow is derision at the shift in Santana's attitude from her phone conversation earlier. _Why was she changing her tune now?_ "Maybe it was something I ate." Santana's shoulders shrug with affected unconcern as she sends a quick look at Brittany.

Brittany's eyes widen, "Me too, San. I was way thirsty, and then I thought I was turning into a duck."

Quinn and Santana both hesitate for a moment, Santana asks, "Britts, why would you think that?"

Brittany's expression became excited, "Ducks are birds, San, you know, they have hollow bones so they can fly." Brittany leans forward and asks "Are my wings coming in yet?" Quinn sighs as Santana makes a show of investigating Brittany's back for feathers. Brittany is a little disappointed when Santana shakes her head.

Quinn was getting the sense that Santana wasn't going to say anything really troubling in front of Brittany, but she needed to see the other girls' reactions to her own experiences. "It was like something burned a lot of water out my body. I remember all this pain shooting up my leg." Quinn sees Santana flinch. "I was dizzy, in pain and...Did you see a…light?"

Brittany brow scrunches, "Yeah, we glowed. It was white with blue in it." Santana draws back a little. Brittany seems a little disappointed with her distancing. Then she states authoritatively, "San, I know my colors."

Quinn watched Santana sigh and settle back against Brittany's side. They were not getting anywhere with this conversation's course. Quinn hesitating only caused Santana to deflect, and Brittany's surety of the impossible unsettled them both. Quinn decided to present the other oddities she had experienced since waking instead, that being the odd thing that happened before she left her room to come here. Uneasily, she decided to mention it. "Uhm, something strange happened." Santana interrupted with a snort. Quinn scowled at her. "I saw and heard things that I shouldn't have been able to."

"Such as?" Santana smirked.

"Well-this is weird but-after the nurse left my room, I could hear her talking all the way down the hallway. When I wheeled out of the room, I saw her about one hundred feet away. I could still hear her like she was standing right next to me! I realized that I could still see the stain from her lunch on the side of her pants." Quinn's glaze had dropped while she spoke, but when she finishes, she looks back into Santana's eyes. "It's not happening now though."

Santana blinks slowly in consideration. "Q, what flavor of jello did they give you?" Again, Quinn notices the deflection from the seriousness of their situation.

"Dammit San, would you take this seriously?" Quinn sighs. "Have you seen your charts? Maybe we should see what the doctors say is wrong with us." She doesn't know why it hadn't occurred to check her own before she left her room. Quinn glances around until she notices Brittany's hospital chart in a plastic sleeve attached to the foot of her bed. She rolls herself over to it and pulls it out. After flipping through it, she looks up and Brittany catches her eye.

"What does it say, Q?"

Quinn frowns. "It says that you're dehydrated and that you weigh 114 lbs. Brittany, how much do you normally weigh?"

"I don't know, but Lord Tubbington weighs 138 lbs. We don't talk about it much because it makes him chain smoke."

Santana cuts in with a lopsided grin and says, "Lord T. weighs at least 20 lbs. That cat is…" Santana glances at Brittany before amending what she was going to say. "That cat gets bacon in the morning for breakfast."

Quinn looks back at the chart for a moment, "diuretics? Isn't that diet pills?" Well, that at least explained her mother's disbelief when they were talking earlier. Her mom is showing some trust by not forcing the issue. She sends this thought to the back of her mind for later review.

Quinn is interrupted by Brittany. "Oh no! Lord Tubbington switched our pills again." Brittany's expression becomes reassuring. "Don't worry Quinn. I'll talk to him about it when I get home."

Quinn sighs. It just isn't worth it. Santana leans over and rests her hand on Brittany's for a moment before stating that she needs to lie back down soon. Brittany scoots over and Santana slips under to blankets, snuggling close. Quinn notices her own exhaustion creeping up on her. She tells them she's heading back to her room for sleep as well.

Quinn unhooks the IV bag from her chair and places it back on its stand, then climbs back into bed for some much needed sleep. Before she drifts off, she sits up and reaches for her own chart. It looked almost the same as Brittany's chart except that she knew how much weight she lost in the span of a few minutes_. Five fucking pounds! How the hell does that happen?_ _Was my scale off in the bathroom at home?_

She awkwardly lifts her hospital gown and looks her body over carefully. Her abdomen has never been this defined. Wrists, arms, and legs all look sleek with tighter ridged muscle than she has ever seen on her own body. Even after Sue Sylvester's numerous insane diet and exercise regiments she had never seen her skin dip so sharp and lay so tightly against the contours of muscle. Maybe Sue has finally flipped her lid, snuck into their houses and implemented her latest form of madness as a coop for the next big win she's constantly after.

Quinn is distracted from this line of thinking, because she can hear the nurses talking again at their station, which is simply nuts, because it's too far away to overhear anything from where she's sitting.

"Quinn Fabray." Pause. "Yes, that will not be a problem. I will see to it." Quinn hears the phone being placed in its cradle. The nurse's tone changes as she begins to hear her speaking to someone else. "That was Dr. Kenson on the phone. He wants a full battery of tests for Quinn Fabray. You know, Betty just told me a few minutes ago that the other girls that came in with her, received the same requests from Doctor Anderson."

A new voice replies, "It's obvious that the girls were overdoing the diet pills. There is no way for them to have collapsed like that all at once, unless they were doing the same stupid thing at the same time. Maybe it's a group thing, but I wish these kids would just quit trying to look like those supermodels they see in magazines and TV. All three of them were lucky this time."

Gradually, Quinn's hearing muffles and she can no longer hear the conversation. _How does this even work? It's so damn weird_. Tiredly, Quinn lies down, slipping into an uneasy sleep.

**Brittany's Hospital Room – Later That Night ~ Brittany**

Brittany is dreaming. She knows she's asleep because she is aware of being in two places at once again. She prefers the dreams where she is a kitten better; because-obviously-kittens are super respected. They get to play and pounce on everything that moves, while being admired for it. Wriggly tails and squirmy kitty butts are way cute. Sometimes, after one of those most awesome dreams, she forgets to give human signals to her prey before jumping them. She's gotten better about that since eighth grade. Santana used to help her do a checklist every morning on the way to school, reminding her to "wake up all the way" before they actually got there. Thankfully it's not time to do one of those yet, and she isn't even a kitten tonight anyway. She's got new stories in Sleepy-Time to figure out though.

Santana, Quinn, and Rachel are in this story, which is cool, but so far she can't understand what any of them are saying to each other. It's like the sound got turned off. They seem to be arguing with each other in one way and doing serious "no-word talking" in another. She tries to keep her eye on them, while searching around for a volume button. _Oh yeah!_ She reaches up with both hands and grabs her ears. Twist to the left, twist a little to the right…there! It's like radio stations. No one seems to notice her watching and listening in.

Brittany glances down and takes note that she is wearing her Super Spy trench coat. _Sweet! Wait. I need my hat too._ She reaches up to sort out the Zorro hat now sitting on her head. She is distracted again with the feeling of a mask covering her face and the weight of a belt and sword at her waist.

_ Oooh! I missed something!_ Brittany realizes her friend's story has moved along without her, because she didn't hit the pause button first. _Where is it?!_ Unfortunately, things had changed from the last time she paid attention and her friends are farther apart from each other.

She finds herself compelled to reach out to the girls, then something unpleasant happens. Something that is remotely familiar, because it is one of the few ugly feelings she has ever experienced. Something is very wrong! She cannot stop her momentum toward all three girls at the same time. She has only felt this unsafe in a dream once before that she can remember. It was the night before Lord Tubbington came to live with her. She could feel her awareness expanding and thinning in order to follow Santana, Quinn, and Rachel. They're leaving and she cannot keep herself from being tugged behind them. She feels like she's coming apart as she rockets toward the girls fading out.

**Somewhere in Lima, OH ~ C.A.T.**

**_ IT _**was, from all appearances, sleeping.

That is what **_IT_** generally did from the perspective of the outer world. The inner world, within **_IT,_** is far more complex and fluid. Inside of **_IT_** many worlds connect and shift with the smallest of force. It, and **_IT,_** is far less comprehensible by other life forms in this reality. **_IT_** does not even belong here, per se; rather, **_IT_** has simply borrowed matter to have presence, because of this action, **_IT_** can be perceived.

**_ IT_** is a C.A.T**.** This is an oversimplified terminology used for the sake of human conceptualization. **_IT_** is a **Clandestine Abject Transducer**, an undetected higher life form who has lowered itself to act as a catalyst for change within a three-dimensional world or in the C.A.T.'s situation, the resistance of unbalanced abnormal changes.

In the beginning, other examples of explanations were used. Some of the ones given to one Brittany S. Pierce were Covert Agent for the Train that brings all the baby kittens and ducks to earth or Construction Architect for Transformers, because it would explain strange habits that a C.A.T. was required to perform. However, when Brittany's inquisitive curiosity became too much, a standby response was "cat", because they're behaviors are apparently befuddling, yet desirable.

In the manner of humans, Brittany S. Pierce, pressured by social conformity, deemed it necessary to give **_IT_** a proper name. That is how an **_IT_** came to be called "Lord Tubbington" or "Lord T." for lazy verbal and documental moments. Unpleasant, but telling, slurs were added, such as "fat cat", "devil", "clit-blocker" or simply a muttered "damn you cat!" by the human called "Santana, aka San or the incredibly lazy verbalization "S".

The **C.A.T**. discovered the concept of laziness only after entering a three-dimensional world. Laziness along with other perception-based influencing actions, such as lying and redundancy, were new to the entity. At what point would such defensive mechanics be employed in the realm of absolute truths? What purpose is served by questioning an absolute with the need to go over and over the same information again and again? Despite the entity's vast intelligence and access, understanding this realm's shifting absolutes, was daunting. The steps to preforming acts of laziness, lying or redundancy was not incomprehensible, it was the purpose behind them that baffled. This is part of the reason that the C.A.T. found itself connected to the three-dimensional life form known as Brittany S. Pierce in the first place.

The entity remembered the beginning of the relationship. A young life form entered the entity's dimension and proceeded to splinter. From the entity's reality, it was a form of uncontrolled chaos; therefore, **_IT_** intervened. Unfortunately, the life form was damaged in the process. That is to say, from the perspective of an absolutist, it was not completely fixed. **_IT_** followed the life force back to her realm, due to incompletion. Now, an **_IT,_** is stuck within three-dimensional timelines, because it became a "**What**", and finally a "**Who**". It became a C.A.T. called Lord Tubbington. The unfortunate side-effect of this chain of events was a personality. Having one influenced perception, pre-decision making, which in turn curtailed power and accessibility.

Lord Tubbington woke, from false slumber, to monitor his person. She was A.W.O.L. again. Brittany S. Pierce appeared to be splitting into three different entities. Lord Tubbington internally sighed. As humans put it, he was "back on the clock".

**No Longer in Lima, OH ~ C.A.T.**

Lord Tubbington suddenly realized where Brittany's soul had gone. As a C.A.T. he was fascinated, but with the alteration of a personality, he was terrified. She had only gone to this plane of existence once before and, if not for his intervention, the experience would have left her completely brain dead. He could sense no chaos, no panic, no unraveling; something was different about her now.

_How? Why?_ He knew it must stem from the strange collapse that took place while she was away from him. He had not had the chance to inspect her closely without being near her. It is true, he could ditch the corporeal body to gain the access he needed, but she always questioned the miniscule changes that taking on a body again inevitably caused. Explaining a weight change, new stripe, spot, or color variation now seemed like a foolish thing to avoid in the face of her dangerously chaotic genius playing with creation tools like a god. So much could go wrong; one miscalculation and she would meet a messy end, literally. It was time to give up the body completely; it would only limit his abilities now.

The release of his body freed him. He chose to be unobserved as he approached her in order to avoid startling his charge. He must remain calm, poised. The game face was more painful to wear than any other time he had donned it. Slipping into her mind as casually as he could, he discovered the reason for her coming here. He also realized at that moment that his handiwork preformed for her safety as a child, was altered and facilitating multiple mutations. His safekeeping, Brittany S. Pierce, was becoming something new, and from skimming her memories, he realized that she was not the only one. He approached carefully, with the appearance of irrelevance despite the fear he really felt being so close to someone who could kill them both by stray thoughts coupled with the longing to attain actuality in the pure plane of alchemy. The minuscule modules of three people hovered near. Seeing them so sharp and clear in the beauty of visual fractals through Brittany's mind made him want to high tail it out of there and drag his charge with him. Unfortunately, she had allowed connections to form between herself and them that would damage her if removed improperly. Lord Tubbington knew that she would have to follow them into their minds before letting go.

A/N: The next chapter is going to be long and complex. I will provide links for visuals if I can.


	3. Stretch Part 1

Thank you for the reviews! I really appreciate your feedback.

Chapter 3 - Visual Fractal Reference Aids: **_From DeviantArt . COM_**

Lord Tubbington – **_The Cheshire Cat_ ~by AmorinaAshton**

Santana – **_BOOOM_ ~by Yubodoc**

Brittany – **_She's a Rainbow_ ~by lordsong**

**_Ice Cream Fractal_ ~by sunshinekelly**

Quinn – **_Portal Emergence_ ~by wolfepaw**

Rachel – (Sigh!) I'm still looking for hers.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything about, of, or from Glee.

**AN: (1.) Thank you so much, AmorinaAshton, Yubodoc, lordsong, sunshinekelly, and wolfepaw, from DeviantArt, for granting permission to connect your wonderful art to this story! (2.) Please use the visual aids! It flippin' helps! (3.) Sorry, folks, I had to break it up into more manageable parts. I'm working on the second part now.**

**Chapter 3 – Stretch Part 1**

**Sleepy-Time ~ Brittany**

The constant pull toward Santana, Quinn, and Rachel seemed to be tired of yanking her around. She was still now, but could see where her friends had gone. They didn't look like themselves here. Brittany was in the Pre-Sleepy-Time Place.

Pre-Sleepy-Time was a vaguely remembered place for Brittany. She knew that she had been here before, yet could not explain why she knew this. Why would she know it, but not know it? Again, Brittany had the ugly feeling creeping up inside, at being where she was. It made her think that this place was dangerous somehow, though she could not see anything trying to hurt her at the moment.

It was a beautiful place, but it did not feel very safe to be here. It reminded her of those frogs that lived in the jungle trees that were so pretty they were poisonous to touch. After Lord Tubbington went through the dictionary with Brittany-in order to improve his accent-she discovered the truth about frogs and finally decided to stop kissing them, just in case they were feeling too pretty on any given day.

Being in Pre-Sleepy-Time was like looking up into the night sky and feeling how big and far away it was, but without the stars acting a normal way. The distant stars were not regular stars anymore. They were colored shapes that stretched and shifted into other shapes and colors, like in math class. Her friends had become some of these pretty, interesting, and maybe dangerous math problems.

_Way pretty! I wonder if they know how awesome they are at doing math in their sleep_.

Her senses told her that she could touch these moving pretty things; she could touch her friends. They were the closet to her, and by focusing her attention on them, the night sky seemed to slip sideways until all colored life seemed distant and muted, except for the three remaining. Brittany tried to reach for one, and instead, slipped closer to the seething sphere of colors that she recognized as Santana without questioning how she knew it was her. No hand or arm extended. Brittany was worried a little. Body parts are important.

_I hope Santana didn't turn into a math tree frog._

Okay, something it not right. She was not in a normal body or acting like she had a normal body. _Did my body get mixed up like the stars?_ Brittany tries to look down at herself but she is moving too rapidly to gather a complete picture of herself. There is this sense that she is a beautiful multicolored and multilayered image that is galloping through space. She is like a rainbow horse. She is free and unfettered. _Okay, this is cool! I am super math horse pretty right now!_ While she likes this side of her nature, it does not feel complete. Even as she observes herself and thinks this thought, she watches her shape changing; she takes on further humanlike definition, and brightens because she is excited.

Brittany senses someone join her. The presence lengthens and settles into her environment. She also notices an outward flux of energy to the three different paths her consciousness is linking to. It makes the whole place brighter and sharper to look at.

The "presence" felt like Lord Tubbington. If a personality could be felt anyway, she would describe it as kind of nappy, secretive, nerdy, and helpful. Helpful was the important one this time. "Fractals, Brittany S. Pierce that is what you and your friends look like."

"Lord Tubbington! I'm so glad to feel you!" She could not technically see or hear him as himself. Then an odd representation of his plump face spans across a large section of her horizon and appears to be somewhat stationary compared to the rest to the fractals moving around them. Brittany's special math shape was the opposite however; her shape's agitation manifests into a floating face and rather than a body forming, her energy swirls madly about her like clumpy swishing hair.

"Of course Brittany S. Pierce, where are we going tonight?" Lord Tubbington's accent was British and always so formal, since he insisted on saying her entire name when they talked.

The words and tones for them simply resolved themselves inside of Brittany's mind. It had always been this way with Lord Tubbington in Sleepy-Time-and now Pre-Sleepy-Time too-, though she could not remember specifically when the last time was that they teamed up to solve mysteries in her sleep. For some reason, those memories faded pretty fast after waking up. They just left that funny after-scrimmage thing. A British-y word appeared in her head then, "After-Image." _Yeah, that._

"Brittany S. Pierce, how did you come to be here? This is not a safe place to be." Lord Tubbington's tone was tense, though his presence still portrayed a calm nerdy friend with answers.

"Was I ever here before? It feels familiar and I sort of get the unsafe feeling too." Brittany paused and focused her attention on the Santana Ball of Feelings angling away from her and compared it to the altered Quinn and Rachel.

Santana was like a world in a space movie. Maybe a planet that was too close to the sun because it seemed steamy and had swirling and arching patterns of reds, oranges, and dark purples bursting through waves of cloud cover. It was a word past cool. That was her Santana. She made sense as a hot steamy planet; it was Santana's way of feeling things.

Brittany shifted focus.

Brittany's connection to Quinn lead to a massive multi-colored butterfly that expanded from its center, then slipped back into itself at the outside edges. Fiery Golden yellows, oranges, lavender, and other purples coated the expanding wings. It made Brittany think of a baby butterfly being born, over and over again. It moved slowly, but it kept doing that one thing.

"A phoenix butterfly," the thought floated into her mind. _Huh?_ "A phoenix is a creature that is born, ages, and dies, only to do it all over again."

"That sounds like it would hurt." Brittany was sympathetic. After considering what this meant about Quinn, she realized it was not so strange. Quinn was a butterfly. She was beautiful and special. She kept doing things that made her crash and burn, but she kept trying to get back on top. She had changed in the last few years of school and the biggest changes that succeeded; bad or good always included Rachel in some way. This thought felt important.

"Yes, that is an important thought Brittany S. Pierce," Lord Tubbington paused uncomfortably, as though working around a hairball in his throat.

Since Lord Tubbington was busy staring at all of them, she continued her own investigation. Rachel's math was very different from Santana or Quinn's. Rachel is a six-point star flower that had a dipping hole in its center. Deep reds, blues, purples, and golden yellows make up the big petals. Tiny transparent floral six-pointed stars kept puffing out of the hole in the center of her flower like smoke signals from a campfire, and then they're fading away into the nothingness. Brittany sees the sense of this. Rachel always wants someone to notice her. Brittany just had not realized she was Indian.

Then the lines connecting Santana, Quinn, and Rachel to Brittany brightened briefly. "There is more to the collapse than you realize." His inspection continued until colored links formed unique overlapping patterns connecting everyone, but himself, to Brittany.

"What do you mean?" Lord Tubbington hesitated at this question. With the feeling of a sigh entering her brain first, Brittany received his response.

"Brittany S. Pierce, I can sense your desire to go to your friends. I will help you do this; however, you must be shown the correct way to approach them so you will not make unfixable mistakes."

Brittany now knew that this was serious. "If I do this wrong, will I break them?"

"It is possible, but it is more likely that you will be the one that is damaged, unless we proceed with caution. We will be careful and I will show you how to enter their matrix." Brittany hoped that meant her friend's math problems and that none of them were jungle tree frogs. "Yes, we will be joining with them. We will add our "math" to theirs in order to understand why they called to you for help in their sleep."

"Will you show me what to do?"

"Yes Brittany S. Pierce, we will do this in steps. Step one, find the center." Lord Tubbington directed her back to the area where she entered Pre-Sleepy-Time. "Place yourself in it to prepare for the duplicating and dividing of your person."

"Why will I need to divide myself?" _That really sounds bad and painful._ Brittany felt a wave of confusion coming to take over her brain.

"You wish to travel to places outside of your "math problem" or matrix. If you wish to be safe, this will require the need for doubling, so that each part of you has a place to come back to. The same piece that leaves and joins you're your friends will need to return and match what we leave here when we are done." He pauses for consideration. "It is like the memory game or puzzle. We will be able to match you against the copy that remains here when we come back."

Once Brittany has complied with Lord Tubbington's first step, he prepares Brittany for the next. "Brittany S. Pierce, if I am to show you how to divide correctly, I will need to join with you in a way that may make you feel afraid at first, but it is necessary. Do you trust me?"

Brittany felt anxiety building inside and could see that it was something that Lord Tubbington was feeling too. "Why would I be afraid?"

"You will not have control over what is happening to you. It will be confusing and may even be painful." His tone softens from informational to caring. "I promise this to you, Brittany S. Pierce, I will not leave you and I will keep you safe."

Brittany's colored patterns dim and slur at her attempt to sigh. She considers the possibility of pain for a moment, then her attention is once again being tugged on from three girls who needed her enough that they pulled her into their dreams. "Did they know what they were doing when they brought me here?"

The simple, but certain response was "no". Brittany tried to think of this in a way that her friends would, unfortunately she was herself. If they needed her, the thinking part didn't matter. She would do whatever was needed.

"I'm ready, Lord Tubbington."

**Santana's Dream ~ Santana**

Santana was in the middle of a nightmare. It was not like any nightmare she had ever had before. There were no ridiculously dressed teachers, students, or pets offending her. No one was being arrested for stupidity; wait, that's a good dream. No attacking shrubbery present. Sue Sylvester was not holding the bullhorn up to her ear and screaming made up words or conspiracy theories. It was rather mundane really, almost normal stuff was happening. Maybe that's why she was suddenly so scared. Something normal felt like it was about to go ape shit weird.

She is walking down a human gauntlet in the hallway by her locker. Any doubt of this being a nightmare leaves when she realizes the faces of the students are on the wrong bodies. Cheerios, hockey and football players, plus losers have transposed faces and are frozen in place, yet their eyes follow her as she moves. She feels the creep of anger and panic squirming up and down her spine.

Her breath is coming short. She stumbles to a halt in front of a mixture of Cheerios and hockey team boys, "What the fuck are you looking at?!"

Strangely, they appear to struggle with any movement. The only thing they respond with is a maniac rotation of their eyeballs. Her anger lessens as the panic avalanches, crashing through her guts. She turns away from frozen faces. She needs to run, but the hallway walls and ceiling are bowing inward, pressing trapped rigid bodied students into each other awkwardly and forcing them toward the free space left in the middle of the hallway. The focal point, at what would be the end of the hallway, is now grinding students into flat translucent versions of the original bodies. They are drifting out of sight in flashes of translucent swirling colors, while their rolling eyes beg for help. She turns; the opposite end of the hallway is a painful mirror of activity. She cannot run anywhere; there is no longer anywhere to go. It suddenly hits her that she is the only one making any noise at all, but if eyes could scream, the students of McKinley High would be breaking glass right now.

Santana has reached a phase of fear she never dreamed herself capable of. She is too hot and too cold at the same time. She can no longer tell if she's breathing. Her vision is dwindling into faded grey swirls of awareness.

_"NO!_" The scream is muffles weirdly when it reverberates against distorting bodies.

With a rush of adrenaline, she pushes physically and mentally back against the disappearing place and terrified people. She doesn't want to die, and she knows that's about to happen if she can't get away. Santana's hands thrown up in front of her body, and she curls them tightly into fists. Her fingers grind into the flesh of her hands until blood drips off knuckles and onto the floor.

Santana's perception stretches to incorporate the blood on the floor. Suddenly she can feel the texture of the cold tiles against her skin. She stares in shock at her hands for a moment, and then flings her arms outward to stare at the blood on the floor. Red droplets fly off her hands and land on students and her awareness gains a new angle. Now she knows why they are screaming. They have no means to share the fear; no way to stop the flattening of their bodies into nothingness. Santana screams fearfully in a long wail that wanes thinly before dying.

_I can't be like them! I won't be!_ With that resolve comes a bubbling burning feeling. Its rage…and no one's rage is quite like Santana's.

Her hands are burning in pain from the bloody slits torn across her palms. Her chest aches and feels increasingly heavy with the viscous weight of her rage. _Why does this feel so fucking real?_

Without further thought, Santana places bloody hands flat against her chest and begins to claw over the thickest area of rage inside her body. She feels it squirming between her fingers as it exits her body. Fingers curl around the writhing, burning sensation. She flings it away from herself, and watches tar-like blobs of fire land on students. Their bodies finally react by writhing in pain as they drop to the floor, crash into each other, and spreading the fire.

All of the remaining McKinley High students are screaming and panting, while the clinging fire consumes them. Santana desperately wants to believe that this is not happening; that she is not responsible. She is killing them all and has no idea how to stop it.

Santana feels papery thin with the rage gone. Desolation is slow to build inside, but it keeps coming as ash flutters everywhere. Ash coats everything as it settles. _It's their bodies, it's their bodies! _repeats over and over inside of Santana's broken mind. She spits. Some ash got in her mouth as she stands there feeling more retched than she knew it was possible to feel. She alternately spits and sobs.

Doorways begin appearing to classrooms previously lost. The hallway is returning to its original form and the ash clears gradually. Students that she just watched die begin filling the hallway again. The human gauntlet is reforming. Santana looks down to see she is still covered in ash and that her hands are still bleeding. Her eyes are drawn to the blood on the floor; its acting like acid and pitting the tile. Moving students halt, bodies are freezing in place again. _Oh, fuck!_

Her rage is gone; throwing it away from her own body makes her feel empty and unprotected somehow. Watching eyes judge her and she senses that she is found lacking.

The walls are warping the space of the hallway. Students begin to die…again.

_Oh, shit._ Santana hits a wall inside her mind. The overwhelming fear is taking a backseat, which is fine by her. Santana has very little use for fear she cannot control, and no use whatsoever for her own.

The bitter taste of ash still coats her teeth. Santana's resolve hardens. She is not going to fall into the same trap of attacking students with anger and rage again, because the result of eating people is disgusting and unbearable.

"What the hell do you people need?" She does not get a response. She exhales the fear and tries to focus. _Okay, okay… what could I possibly do to make this any better? They are terrified. They are trapped._ She is stuck with them. A niggling thought enters her mind, _translucent moving colors_…why does this seem so familiar? The nurse! _Wait, what the hell would that have to do with this though?_ Santana recalls the situation that led to her visually noticing the way the nurse felt. _Should I insult the human gauntlet? That totally doesn't make sense, but what the fuck!_ It's something she's good at and a better idea than purposely setting them on fire again.

Insults fly from her mouth as easy as breathing, in English and Spanish. She attempts to target everyone with some cutting remark, but it doesn't take long for her to realize this accomplishes the opposite of what she wants. Their agitation worsens and the movement of hallway walls pulse like a heartbeat beginning to race. _Shit, shit, shit! Think dammit! Okay…Uhmm…I'll try to calm them._

"Uh…hey losers…I need your attention." Her tone softens. There are a few pairs of whirling eyes that slow, and focus on her like she has the answers to the chemistry test written on her forehead. _This is so fucking twisted! I'm not good at this kind of thing!_ "Yeah, uhmm…whack-jobs, follow the sound of my voice. You need to calm your asses down or you're going to die again." Santana brought her tone down to that soft coaxing she generally used on Brittany when she wanted to talk her into to something. "Just chill the fuck out and stop panicking. Okay?" It's like talking to a bunch of scared dogs. Her words are still technically mean, but being delivered gently does the trick.

In the end, the results are not too far different, with the exception of no one literally burning up and the few individuals who clung to her gaze, listening to her voice, are still around when the hallway quits making her feel sick from squashing people to nothing.

Doorways are appearing. The same students are returning.

_Oh. Come. On. People! No! Just…No! I can't do this again!_

She rushes up to the students, scanning their weird faces closely-yet still unwilling to touch them-looking for any of her friends, but one person in particular. No one looks quite the way they should. The eyes watching her back begin the frantic movement. _Please, don't let me find Brittany!_ Santana has never wanted to avoid finding the innocent blonde's face so much in her life. The light in the hallway changes and grows brighter. Santana spins around, looking for the source.

Brittany is emerging vertically out of a brilliantly backlit opening in the floor. She seems to bring a thrumming energy with her from wherever she came from, because she's glowing subtlety around the edges.

"Hi San," Brittany says, waves and smiles before stepping uncertainly away from the opening. She's casting a strange shadow that seems to forget where it's supposed to be for a moment, before it hurries to fall properly on the floor in front of her.

Santana heart sinks. "Brittany, baby, I need you to leave right now. Please! It's not safe here."

"Santana, what happened to your hands, you're bleeding?" Brittany moves toward Santana and grabs her hands before she can pull them out of reach. "Don't worry, S., I'll help you." She lets go of Santana.

The hallway shimmers for a moment and Santana feels the floor shake as Brittany reaches into the pocket of a trench coat she wasn't wearing a second ago. She pulls out a tiny irritated, but real, living unicorn.

The unicorn lets out a high pitched squeaky neigh, kicking for all its worth. The creature really doesn't want to be here and is trying to escape from Brittany's hands. She watches Brittany shush and soothe the beast.

The air around Brittany thins and warps. Santana gets a glimpse _through_ the focused blonde into another place. Two scenes flash by in rapid progression.

She sees Quinn dropping limply from a height; blood streaming down her arms. When her body hits the ground, she sees Quinn's uncurling body altering; her skin subtly changing with a faint sheen of metallic tones before her head lifts to focus on something beyond Santana's line of sight.

The scene twists in on itself before reforming.

A flare of lightening brightens a dark arid plain. Santana sees Rachel Berry huddling in the sand with a ten foot wall of water racing up from behind and forward to overtake the terrified diva. Rachel suddenly throws her head back and opens her mouth in such a way that Santana knows she's screaming. Something around Rachel's throat begins to glow.

Then the air around Brittany congeals and the madness is, once again, simply her problem. It happens so quickly that Santana is not entirely sure she saw anything real at all.

Movement.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Brittany's shadow shape change; it shifts radically to that of something familiar. It is a rather fat cat's shadow, who is frantically trying to catch Brittany's attention by signaling the termination of life with sliding his paw across his own throat. Brittany finally notices the motion.

"Lord T., what's wrong?" Brittany seems a little worried. The shadow continued its harrowed gesturing. Brittany shakes her head, perplexed at her shadow, "I don't know Morse code." Then she turns to Santana.

"San, all you have to do is touch the magic horn and it will fix your hands." Santana hesitantly places her hands on the still pissed mini-unicorn. Brittany decides to transfer the creature into Santana's hands completely. Her fingers make contact with a tiny horn of a mythical animal. Her fingers brush briefly against its agitated mane, and this really doesn't go over well. The equine decides to exact revenge in the form of glitter coated shit, landing in her hands and promptly being ground in by tiny precise hooves before she can toss the little fucker to the ground, where it would meet two and a half inch boot heel retribution. Santana knows _that_ action would cause crying.

"Dammit! Brittany, get this thing away from me! It just took a dump in my hand!" She feels an insane itchiness of healing overtake each finger-nailed puncture in her palms. _Just my luck…I'm either allergic to you or Unicorn shit is where the magic is at. Fucking glitter! _Finally, Santana loses the battle with the squirming creature and it escapes her hand, high-tailing it down the hallway. Even after it's out of sight she can hear pissed squeaky neighing.

With that, the cat shadow stretches out across the floor in frustration leaving distinct claw marks as it pulls back, before it finally contains its ire. The shadow cat startles at the marks it leaves and leaps to Brittany's shoulder, curling awkwardly around her neck with a distracting dangling twitchy tail between her breasts.

Santana finally recalls herself to the situation she was in before Brittany literally popped into it. She turns and discovers that the school scene is no longer there. They are standing in Santana's bedroom. _Thank god!_ Brittany distracted her to the point of leaving the terrifying nightmare without even realizing it. Brittany leans toward her and places a gentle sweet lady kiss upon her lips.

Brittany whispers against her lips, "I love you San, but I have to go. I'm on Sleepy-Time missions." As Brittany leans back Santana sees that Brittany somehow managed to put on a Spanish Gaucho hat while they were kissing. "I'm rescuing damsels in distress." With that, she steps back and down into the bright hole in the floor, and disappears with the cat shaped shadow harassing Brittany's earlobe all the way.

AN: Please let me know what you think, if you liked or hated it, by review or sending me a message.


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